JOSHUA SEEMU­N­GAL

De­spite the St Jude’s School for Girls hav­ing a new home in Diego Mar­tin, there are sev­er­al press­ing is­sues at the school threat­en­ing the well­be­ing of staff and stu­dents, ac­cord­ing to the Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers Union (BIG­WU). BIG­WU rep­re­sents the staff at St Jude’s.

At a me­dia con­fer­ence at the union’s Barataria head of­fice on Sat­ur­day, BIG­WU’s Pres­i­dent Don De­venish claimed the sit­u­a­tion was dire, al­leg­ing that there were alarm­ing lev­els of mis­man­age­ment that were bor­der­line crim­i­nal.

The union said it is de­mand­ing im­me­di­ate and com­pre­hen­sive ac­tion, warn­ing that in the ab­sence of the ac­tion they would take the mat­ters up be­fore the in­dus­tri­al court.

“The state of the plumb­ing sys­tem at the Diego Mar­tin com­pound has re­sult­ed in a lack of wa­ter since last Sat­ur­day. This un­ac­cept­able sit­u­a­tion has forced the girls to trav­el back to Bel­mont mere­ly to ac­cess ba­sic show­er fa­cil­i­ties,” the BIG­WU pres­i­dent re­vealed.

“The sched­ul­ing of staff at St Jude’s is marked by in­com­pe­tence, re­sult­ing in chron­ic un­der­staffing. This detri­men­tal prac­tice puts ad­di­tion­al stress on work­ers, mak­ing it in­creas­ing­ly chal­leng­ing for them to ful­fil their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties ef­fec­tive­ly,” De­venish said.

In re­sponse to the sto­ry, Chair­man of the Home’s board of di­rec­tors Mar­sha Bai­ley said the board was aware of the plumb­ing is­sues and were try­ing to find a so­lu­tion.

She lament­ed that work­ers thought it nec­es­sary to com­plain to the me­dia when part of the prob­lem is be­yond the board’s con­trol. She asked for pa­tience.

The school cur­rent­ly has 65 res­i­dents.

The school’s pre­vi­ous fa­cil­i­ty in Bel­mont was deemed un­fit, leav­ing the school un­li­censed.